4th Period: Friday, March 11, 2016

 Put away phones

 Read SSR Book

 Commentary: Story Beginnings (John McNally)

 Consider tone. The beginning of each story also

establishes psychic distance, the relationship
between the reader and the events in the story,
and, more importantly, the relationship between
the reader and the story’s narrator.
 Story Beginnings
 1. It is August 4, 1977, and it’s snowing.
 This sentence is pure exposition. There is no character, no precise setting, only information. The
reader attaches him- or herself to a sentence such as this one almost entirely on an intellectual
level. If the reader happens to respond on an emotional level, it’s because of some personal
connection to August 4, 1077, or some memory of snow, but not because of any emotionally
resonant moment in the story.
 2. A large man walks out of a restaurant and into the snowy night.
 If you think of this sentence in terms of a scene in a movie, it might be the opening shot, perhaps
a bird’s eye view of the scene, filmed from a helicopter. Neither the man nor the bar is specific.
The details are general in nature, unspecific.
 3. Joe Worthington steps out of the Sunset Bar and Grill and shivers.
 We have specifics. These specifics, in turn, give the reader a sense of personality and place. The
Sunset Bar and Grill has more character than “a restaurant.” As a result, the reader starts feeling
closer to the scene.
 4. Joe Worthington, stepping out of the Sunset Bar and Grill, thinks about how horribly cold it
is.
 For the first time, the reader is privy to Joe’s internal thoughts. This is significant because the
reader now has a consciousness to hook into. The fictional world is no longer viewed objectively;
it is being filtered, at least in part, through Joe’s point of view.
 5. Damn, it’s cold, Joe Worthington thinks, stepping out of the Sunset Bar and Grill.
 The difference between # 5 and # 4 is that the reader is now privy to Joe’s direct internal thought.
We are more fully inside his head. We are probably more likely to have a visceral response to what
Joe thinks and what he does.
 6. Damn, it’s cold!
 In terms of psychic distance, this is as close as we can get. We are directly inside Joe’s head. In #
5 above, we felt the presence of the author who provides “Joe Worthington thinks.” Not here. If
the story were to continue in this vein, we’d call it “internal monologue.”
 Journal:
 Use this story beginner and compose a brief
narrative:
 He’d never noticed a door there before.
 FANTASY
 Uses magic and supernatural as part of plot,
theme, and/or setting; steers clear of technology
 Roots in mythology
 High Fantasy vs. Low Fantasy
 High Fantasy
 setting is completely made-up world. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien
 serious in tone
 fantastical elements such as elves, fairies, dwarves, magic or sorcery, wizards or magicians
invented languages, and quests
 Most high fantasy storylines are told from the viewpoint of one main hero. Often, much of
the plot revolves around his heritage or mysterious nature. In many novels the hero is an
orphan or unusual sibling, often with some incredible ability. He begins the story young, if
not an actual child. Some examples of this are J.R.R. Tolkien's Frodo Baggins
 Typically, the hero slowly gains knowledge of his past through legend, prophecy, lost-and-
found-again family members, or encounters with "mentor" characters who know more
about him than he does. With that knowledge comes power and self-confidence; the hero
often begins as a childlike figure, but matures rapidly, experiencing a huge gain in
fighting/problem-solving abilities along the way.The plot of the story often depicts the
hero's fight against the evil forces
 Typically has a wise, old man as a mentor. This character is often a formidable wizard or
warrior, who provides the main character with advice and help. Examples would be:
Tolkien's Gandalf, Rowling's Dumbledore, Merlin in Arthurian Legends
 Good versus Evil is a common concept in high fantasy, and the character of evil is often an
important concept in a work of high fantasy. In many works of high fantasy, this conflict
marks a deep concern with moral issues; in other works, the conflict is a power struggle,
with, for instance, wizards behaving irresponsibly whether they are "good" or "evil".
 Low Fantasy
 Setting in real world with fantastical elements (Matilda)
 Characters are typically haunted by dark pasts or
character flaws and where conventional fantasy
elements (such as magic, elves, or dwarves) are lacking
or absent.
 In low fantasy, there are many shades of gray, where the
"main character" is often an anti-hero.
 Peter Pan
By: James Matthew Barrie

1. What do you know of Peter Pan?

2. How many of you have seen…
1. The play?
2. The Disney cartoon version?
3. Hook?
4. Finding Neverland?
5. Read the actual unabridged book?

3. Many controversies exist with Peter Pan.

For this unit, we’ll explore Barrie’s
influences in writing it, the different
perspectives of “parents/children,”
“innocence,” and “growing up.”
 Basic Plot
Peter Pan, an orphan with magical
powers, arrives in the night
nursery of the Darling children,
Wendy, John, and Michael. He
teaches them to fly and
introduces them to the Never
Never Land inhabited by fantastic
characters, including the fairy
Tinkerbell, the Lost Boys, and the
pirate Captain Hook.
 CHARACTERS

Mr. Darling: Nana: Mrs. Darling:

Newfoundland Mother, wanted
Father, wanted to
be just like the sheep dog, everything just
neighbors, guardian, so, prudent,
viewed position caregiver, loved her
in community as babysitter, kind, children,
extremely watchful, organized, neat,
important conscientious tidy, coddles
children
 CHARACTERS

John: Wendy: Michael:

Second and Oldest child, Youngest
middle child, loving, child wants
striving for mother-like, to be taken
attention orderly, neat care of,
pampered
 CHARACTERS

Capt. Hook: Peter Pan: Tinker Bell:

Pirate, Boy who never Fairy, jealous
grew up, child in of Wendy,
scoundrel, all of us, wants
hates peter to have a mother, friend of
pan, afraid adventurous, Peter Pan
mischievous,
of crocodile rebellious
 James Barrie
J. M. Barrie was born May 9, 1860
in Kirriemuir, Scotland. Margaret
Oglivy raised him in the midst of 10
other children, the mother he adored.
When Barrie was six, his older
brother David (the mother's favorite)
died in a skating accident, and Barrie
spent the rest of his childhood trying
to replace his brother for his mourning
mother. This attempt to replace a
forever-young David would take it's
toll on the rest of Barrie's adult life
and his writing. Barrie could be
described as small and shy. As a man,
he stood little more than five feet, was
quiet and awkward around women.
 Barrie’s biography of his mother,
Margaret Ogilvy, 1896
“The room was dark, and when I heard the door shut and no sound
come from the bed I was afraid, and I stood still. I suppose I was
breathing hard, or perhaps I was crying, for after a time I heard a
listless voice that had never been listless before say, “Is that
you?” I think the tone hurt me, for I made no answer, and then
the voice said more anxiously “Is that you?” again. I thought it
was the dead boy she was speaking to, and I said in a little lonely
voice, “No, it’s no’ him, it’s just me.” Then I heard a cry, and my
mother turned in bed, and though it was dark I knew that she
was holding out her arms…

After that I sat a great deal in her bed trying to make her forget
him, which was my crafty way of playing physician.”
Fortunately for Barrie, he was a success
as a writer. He got his start as a writer
for the Nottingham Journal after
graduating from Edinburgh
University. Before this time though,
Barrie had already been captivated by
the theater and after having short
stories and several successful books
published, Barrie finally wrote his first
play--Ibsens's Ghost (1891). He
followed this with Walker, London,
during the production of which he
met his future wife--the actress--Mary
Ansell. The marriage was not a
success, but in it's duration Barrie
wrote his most successful plays,
including The Little Minister (1897), The
Admirable Crichton (1902), and his most
memorable work--Peter Pan (1904).
Barrie wrote Peter Pan as a tribute
to the sons of his friends Sylvia
and Arthur Llewelyn Davies. It
was distinctly different from the
previous, more mature material
that Barrie had written and
would write. Peter Pan was a
fantasy, but not any mere fairy
tale. Like Peter Pan himself,
Barrie was a boy who refused to
grow up. Barrie took such
elements of life as his
awkwardness with, yet
dependence opon women, his
love of children, and his own
longing for childhood and
shaped them into one of the
best-loved stories of all time.
Peter Pan was Barrie's
greatest success. In
1912, he turned it into a
book, called "Peter and
Wendy". However, after
writing Peter Pan, he went
on to write more
plays. What Every Woman
Knows (1906), Dear Brutus
(1917), and Mary Rose
(1920) were all very well
received plays.
On a more personal note,
Barrie's wife--Mary Ansell--
divorced him in 1908. That
same year, Arthur Llewelyn
Davies died of cancer and in
1910 his wife Sylvia followed
him, with the same
disease. Barrie was left to
take care of all five Davies
boys, whom he treated like
him own children. In later
years, Barrie was made a
baronet and received several
honorary degrees on account
of his literary figure. He died
in 1937 after a long life.
 Excerpts from the Novel
"I don't want ever to be a man," he said with
passion. "I want always to be a little boy and
to have fun. So I ran away to Kensington
Gardens and lived a long long time among the
fairies."
She gave him a look of the most intense admiration, and
he thought it was because he had run away, but it was
really because he knew fairies… Still, he liked them on
the whole, and he told her about the beginning of
fairies. "You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed
for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand
pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was
the beginning of fairies.”
 Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying
up her children's minds. It is the nightly custom of
every good mother after her children are asleep to
rummage in their minds and put things straight for next
morning, repacking into their proper places the many
articles that have wandered during the day…
 When you wake in the morning, the naughtiness and
evil passions with which you went to bed have been
folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind
and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your
prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.
It made Peter kick instead of stab.
At last Hook had got the boon for which he craved.
"Bad form," he cried jeeringly, and went content to the crocodile.
Thus perished James Hook…

The lateness of the hour was almost the biggest thing of all. She
got them to bed in the pirates' bunks pretty quickly, you may be
sure; all but Peter, who strutted up and down on the deck, until
at last he fell asleep by the side of Long Tom. He had one of his
dreams that night, and cried in his sleep for a long time, and
Wendy held him tightly…
 NEVERLAND…
I don't know whether you have ever seen a map of a person's mind.
Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map
can become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a
child's mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the
time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a card, and
these are probably roads in the island, for the Neverland is always more or
less an island, with astonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral
reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs,
and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through which a river runs,
and princes with six elder brothers, and a hut fast going to decay, and one
very small old lady with a hooked nose. It would be an easy map if that
were all, but there is also first day at school, religion, fathers, the
round pond, needle-work, murders, hangings, verbs that take the dative,
chocolate pudding day, getting into braces, say ninety-nine, three-pence for
pulling out your tooth yourself, and so on, and either these are part of the
island or they are another map showing through, and it is all rather
confusing, especially as nothing will stand still.
 Thought…
What does Neverland symbolize?
 Challenge:

We all have a place like Neverland in our own

imaginations where time stands still and
everything is just the way we want it to
be. Create a picture of what your Neverland
looks like as you see it.
 Reflection
 Read the editorial about Peter Pan. Write a ½ page
reflection to it.

 Then, consider the questions on your handout. Respond

to 3 in detail, but be prepared to discuss them all.
 Article Questions

 1. What shocked you most about the article?

 2. What new insights about Barrie do we learn?

 3. Do you agree/disagree with the “Bloodthirsty nature of children” in

Peter Pan during the Victorian age? Why change it (like in the Disney
version), and why leave it the same for kids today?
 Discussion
 What are your thoughts about the editorial?

 1. What do you think about living forever as a kid and never growing
up? Would you be interested in doing that? What are the good parts of
that? What would you miss if you never grew up?
 2. Peter Pan is also about the idea of "play vs. work". Do you still make
believe, pretending you are Peter or Wendy or Hook? At what age do you
think we start to tell children to stop pretending? Do you think kids get
embarrassed when someone catches them playing make-believe? Do you
think we should always be able to pretend?
 3. Mr. Darling becomes Hook in Neverland. What questions does that make
you ask about parents in 1904 when this play was originally written? Do you
know a Hook-like adult? Is this a good or bad thing?
 Discussion
 4. Neverland is a fantasy world, but it is not perfect. There is danger there in the form
of pirates and the crocodile. Why do you think Barrie didn’t make this world perfect?
 5. What does Wendy bring into Peter and the Lost Boys' lives?
 6. What is it about being able to fly like birds without a plane that is appealing to
humans?
 7. The Lost Boys eat imaginary food in Neverland. It seems that no one ever gets
hungry or tired. Why is this imaginary food so satisfying and fulfilling? Why not make
it real?
 8. What is a world without adults to you? What would be the pros and cons of being
able to live forever as a kid? Would you be interested in trying it, taking the risk that
you would like it?
 10. There is a certain level of violence in Peter Pan, which cannot be denied. How do
you feel the violence was handled?